Sunday, December 27, 2009

Lawyer Laundry Operations in Ohio

According to the Associated Press, two Columbus, Ohio-area lawyers will enter guilty pleas to money laundering charges as the outcome of a major drug smuggling ring that engaaged in transporting drugs from Arizona into Ohio. I'm sure there will be updates to this tale of attorneys gone criminal, but the time being here's the link to the initial story on these two crooks. Charles W. McGowan, 41, and Kyle Hunter, 40, are expected to enter their guilty pleas to charges of laundering money for "the Donald Dailey Jr. Drug Ring" on Jan. 6. They are looking at serious prison time.

Explanation: these are lawyers who got involved with Donald Dailey, Jr. who was making so much money from importing drugs into Ohio that he had to find a way to convert his ill-gotten gains into usable cash. These attorneys provided that process through their IOLTA accounts or sham businesses. In either event the attorneys became active participants in the drug-running schemes.

A month or so ago someone sent me a link to the story of a Akron-area attorney, Frank Pignatelli with a similar situation. Cleveland.com reports that Pignatelli who was doing the same thing as McGowan and Hunter was sentenced to 16 months. I didn't use the item, then; but a pattern seems to be emerging makin git comment worthy--the recession seems to have Ohio lawyers scrambling for green.